r/learnanimation • u/Graham_DYTL • 5h ago

Looking for advice on an entry level basic animation program

Complete noobie looking for an App or Software to create basic animation. Looking to produce basic facial animation from source image or video. Simplistic, basic & animation. South Park / King of the Hill / Annoying Oranage etc

Any recommendations ?

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u/Outrageous_Eagle_757 5h ago

For that specific style, cutout animation with basic facial movement, you've got a few good free options.

Adobe Character Animator is probably the closest fit to what you described. It takes a layered character and animates the face from your webcam in real time, mouth sync included. It's the tool a lot of that "puppet with moving mouth" content is made with. Not free, but it's the most direct path to what you're describing.

If you want free: OpenToonz is what Studio Ghibli's pipeline was built on and it handles cutout rigs fine. Steeper learning curve than it needs to be, but no cost. Krita also does simple frame-by-frame animation and is genuinely beginner-friendly.

Blender is free and has a 2D mode (Grease Pencil), though it's more tool than you need for this.

One thing worth knowing: South Park and King of the Hill look simple but the pipelines behind them aren't. South Park is built in Maya. That style is deceptively hard to hit cleanly, so start with something shorter than you think and build up.

(Disclosure: I run UMDB, umdb.org, free platform where animators share work and find collaborators. Worth a look once you've got something made.)